


Sex Tourette's

by becisvolatile



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Non Consent, Questionable Consent, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-20
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-13 23:31:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2169453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/becisvolatile/pseuds/becisvolatile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy very nearly missed the quiet tink-tink noise, followed by a tinny rolling sound as a thin aluminium canister coasted across the tiles and came to a stop just by her foot. It rocked a little, came to a standstill, then released a short puff of air. Darcy shot to her feet, she knew enough to know that the unscheduled release of unidentified substances was not desirable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Labour of Lust

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote 'sex pollen' fic. Because reasons. Obviously consent is troublesome in this trope, so I'll just say that while consent is lacking in the initial encounter, it will be very present in everything that follows.
> 
> Title is taken from the Abbe May song 'Sex Tourette's'.

Darcy considered it something of a coup that she’d managed to finagle JARVIS into hooking up Netflix to her workstation. She would have felt guilty about the lost productivity but it was 10 P.M, she was halfway through _Broad City_ and Jane still hadn’t made it back from her Super Seekrit™ meeting with R and D. So much for waiting at the lab for Jane. 

She hit pause on the laptop and kicked back in her chair, stretching and groaning dramatically as she did so. She was so noisy that she very nearly missed the quiet tink-tink noise, followed by a tinny rolling sound as a thin aluminium canister coasted across the tiles and came to a stop just by her foot. It rocked a little, came to a standstill, then released a short puff of air.

Darcy shot to her feet, she knew enough to know that the unscheduled release of unidentified substances was not desirable and might have been concerned about it, except that she could hear the growing sounds of crashing coming in her direction. Fast.

_Well, fu-_

~*~

Steve cleared the final wall, dropped his shoulder and caught Lewis somewhere between her hips and ribs, using his momentum to swing her up and over his shoulder, clamping his arm down behind her knees to secure her as he continued to move through the building.

Normally he felt a twinge of guilt when it came to such flagrant destruction of property, but it was Stark’s tower so he was kind of okay with tearing through a cheap panel of plasterboard here and there.

… and that was basically his last thought as he was stopped dead by a wall that was decidedly _not_ plasterboard.

~*~

“ _-the fu-”_

“Lewis.”

“Nnngh.” Darcy sat up and raked her hands through her hair, her fingers got caught halfway though, so she abandoned the pursuit. “S’hot in here?” It sounded like a question, but damned if she wasn’t _burning_ up.

The heat seemed like the most pressing issue, not the when, where or who (she wasn’t even willing to start on the _why_ ). Her skin was prickling with a sickening sort of heat, something very much like the time she’d had an allergic reaction to a ‘lip plumping’ gloss, only this time it wasn’t just her mouth that felt unaccountably feverish, it was every part of her. She lifted her arm to poke at her wrist as she scanned the dimly lit room. A dark figure loomed large by the door, Darcy scoped his waist-to-shoulder ratio and calmed. “Cap?”

“Lewis, right?” 

“All day, every day.”

“Are you okay? We, uh, _ran_ into a spot of trouble.” His voice was low, but firm and calm. Even from across the room she could feel it down to her sternum, feel it start a low buzz that only added to the heat she was already battling. Beyond him she could make out bare concrete walls, a single steel door and… well, that basically exhausted the talking points of the cell. Near the door she spotted a small smear of blood, her eyes slipped to his hands and while they seemed whole and unharmed, there was a corresponding slick of blood along his knuckles. She wanted to _lick_ them clean. She pushed the errant thought away with a screwed up nose. What was wrong with her?! Obviously they were in dire straits and her brain was throwing out utterly unhelpful gems like _that._ Ugh.

“Did you try and _punch_ your way out of here?”

“Worth a shot,” he mumbled as he crossed to her and squatted down to look closely at her.

“No, actually. It’s _never_ worthwhile trying to punch concrete. Peak human or not, that is a terrible idea.” God, he was close. He’d never been that close before. Even smelling of sweat and just the hint of soap, Darcy felt as if his smell spoke to her on a chemical level or something. Steve Rogers was like her every adolescent crush on crack; handsome the the point of ridiculousness, so kind and polite that she frequently wanted to punch his stupid, sculpted face… not to mention that the guy was Captain- _freakin’_ -America. Everything about the man _spoke_ to her (well, presumably her and every member of his official fan club). She reached out to push his mask back, he allowed it but narrowed his eyes and looked a little more closely at her.

Darcy cleared her throat guiltily and returned her hand to her person, where it belonged. “Who has us?” she asked, trying to get on board with the seriousness of their predicament.

“HYDRA, H.A.T.E, the Hand? Got a couple of options, kid. Don’t matter as long as we can give them the slip.”

“And that’s how likely, exactly?”

Steve passed a hand over the back of his neck and glanced away, “Not very. Not yet, anyway, but I’m on it.”

Which was, y’know, comforting and stuff but, _man_ , was she hot… her skin was _so tight_ , more so in some places than others and-

“Ma’am?” It was the way his voice caught in his throat that told her something was wrong. Which made sense because she’d managed to slip her hands up beneath her top and into her bra. Darcy pulled her hands from her breasts with a gasp of horror. What the _Hell_ was wrong with her?

~*~

At first, Steve had struggled to remember her name. Not because he wasn’t familiar with her, but because Clint had a habit of calling her ‘Two Buttons’ in honour of the shirt buttons she undid when Clint was in the area. 

Steve would never be that crass, but if he followed Clint’s naming convention, then he should have been calling her ‘Three Buttons’. Steve had been torn on deciding if that was flattering or terrifying, even if - just quietly - he took no small amount of pride in being her ‘Three Button’ guy. Darcy Lewis was a damn enticing girl, but Steve wasn’t all that sure that he was in a good place to be enticed. _Still…_ there was a lot to be said for the way she’d slipped her hands beneath her shirt and breathily filled them with what - it had to be said - were the most spectacular breasts Steve had seen in a long while. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the time nor the place and something about the unguarded action had started a few alarm bells in Steve’s head. Least of all because of the way her peaked nipples pressed up against her red button down shirt, or the way she seemed utterly unaware of the soft, feminine and _wholly carnal_ noises periodically slipping past her lips.

Darcy was staring down at her now empty hands, her chest rising and falling with rapid breaths. Steve reached out to cup her elbow, dropping his head low to catch her eye.

“Darcy?”

“I-I’m sorry I seem to be suffering a little bit of…” She came up on her knees to face him, one hand shooting out to steady herself against him, her fingers trembled against him as she frowned.

“What’s wrong?”

“Look.” She tapped his chest, “Terrible timing, I know. But I’m going to need us to ‘do the do’, like, _now.”_

“The do?” Steve made a grab for her hand. He wasn’t sure how she’d done it so quickly, but she’d managed to slip free a couple of the blind buttons beneath the placket of his suit top and was in the process of wiggling her fingers beneath the fabric in search of skin.

“The sex. We need to - _uh -_ we need to make that happen.” She wiggled her fingers even though his grip had stopped her progress.

“The _sex_?” Steve narrowed his eyes at her flushed face as her finger fanned out over his nipple. Deep down - well, not _that_ deep down - Steve wanted to release her hand and let her continue her exploration.

“The. Sex.” Darcy confirmed with a nod as she swung one knee out and moved forward until she had enough leverage to bring him down onto his knees and straddle one thigh. She was a solid little thing, lush and robust as she shut her eyes, moaned softly and pressed the heated flesh high between her thighs against the twitching muscle of his thigh. His hands shot to her hips, but he paused once he had them there, unsure if he wanted to pull her down and help her mobile curved hips find the friction she was seeking or - more appropriately - still her.

Shaky fingers were divided between fumbling with with the top half of his suit and slipping down to press at the denim at the juncture of her thighs. She was frenzied, frantic… sweat beaded her forehead and her red-rimmed eyes misted. Lust, then, but not any kind he wanted to be a part of. He wrapped one hand around the back of her neck and pulled her in, her nose bumped against his chest as she whimpered and he dropped a chaste kiss to her damp forehead as he eyed the locked door with hatred. Even dogs didn’t fight with so little class. Whatever was besieging poor little Darcy was the nastiest, lowest sort of trick and he was just _itching_ to have a go at whoever had done this to her.

“ _Please_ ,” she began as she arched back just enough to yank the fly of her jeans open and stuff his long fingers down, over the pink-laced edge of her panties. She was so _hot._ The lace covering her was insanely soft. His own shameful groan was masked by her gasp as his fingers glanced across the small indent that marked the top of her pussy. Even there she was damp, even through the lace he could feel it. Darcy rubbed her forehead across his pec as his finger slid lower, pressing and learning, his hand a disobedient heat-seeker that had long stopped paying attention to his own - frankly pathetic - protests. His wrist curled up and his index finger came to linger over the place where she was hottest, where the lace was already slick from her. Steve crooked his finger gently, just the slightest move to press the lace up into her… no more than a fingertip… no more than -

“More,” Darcy moaned as she swivelled her hips. He couldn’t say if it was the swivel, or his own doing, but suddenly his fingers were slipping past the soft lace, tugging her panties aside to touch her unbelievably soft and bare little pussy. She was slick, scorching wet, as she bucked desperately against his hand. 

There was a shocking clarity in having her pressed against him. He felt, deep to his gut, in some primal way, that this was his role. Whatever else he’d been told, whatever else he’d been pitched against in life, _this_ was what he’d been made for. Not to wage war, but to fulfil the desires of the woman bucking against his hand and winding her way into his ribcage … Whatever else he was, whatever else he did, he was built to _satisfy_ her. 

He took a second to look down at her, sweeping sweat-damp curls away from the nape of her neck as he wrapped his too-large hand around it and tilted her face up to look at her. Flushed and breathless, Darcy Lewis was his every carnal fantasy made flesh…

… but looking around the shitty cell hardened his resolve. _Not here, not like this._

“Sorry, kid,” he murmured as his thumb stroked gently over her jaw, just below her ear. Confusion had barely started to register on her face when he upped the pressure and waited for her to slump unconscious against his chest.

~*~

Darcy felt like a bag full of assholes. Like someone had turned her skin into shrink-wrap, then filled her mouth with crushed glass.

She wanted to wake up about as much as she wanted to shit in her own hands and clap. 

Alas, a niggling pain at the back of her hand demanded a good scratching. She lifted her other hand, trying not to register how weak she felt, or the way that she had to drag her hand across her stomach to reach the itch. Just a couple more inches and she could -

Her hand was smacked away and she was forced to crack an eye and assess her situation. “Jane?” … was what she _meant_ to say. Instead she sort of just croaked because, apparently, while she’d been sleeping someone had coated her tongue with AstroTurf. Jane - not known for being the sort of doctor with an amicable bedside manner - just stuffed a handful of ice chips into Darcy’s mouth and lifted her itching hand to inspect it. The IV cannula was held in place with tape - the source of her itch. 

“It’s fine,” Jane told her, “Fluids and a hormone neutralising cocktail.”

Darcy shuddered. She had a feeling that anything thusly named was probably a little shy of FDA approval. Darcy dissolved that last of the ice in her mouth and gave talking another crack. “Neutr-”

“For the pollen.”

“Po-” she struggled to sit up.

“Sex pollen.”

“That’s not a thing.” Darcy held on to the hope that she was being wound up. “Stark made that up at the Christmas party.”

“Incorrect,” this from Banner who slipped into the room, head bowed as he crossed to her bedside and examined the small patch that seemed to be feeding into her bag of fluids, “It was just that, until four days ago, it was a hypothetical thing. You are the first official survivor of exposure to sex pollen. Congratulations,” he continued in his typical dry manner, “You might even get a ribbon.”

“And a bad reputation,” Darcy grumbled as she slumped back against her pillows. Her memory of the events leading up to her incapacitation was a little thready, but it involved sexually assaulting a national icon. She narrowed her eyes at Banner as he produced a needle and made a grab for her arm, “I didn’t think you were this kind of doctor. I want a real doctor.”

“All the other sex-pollen specialists are at the convention,” he answered as he passed an alcohol swab over the crook of her elbow then proceeded to take a blood sample.

“I want a pay rise,” Darcy said as she looked away from the needle toward Jane.

“You got to molest Steve, that trumps a pay rise.”

Darcy slumped against her pillow with a wounded, pathetic whimper. “God, _I did_ , didn’t I?”

Jane - a woman for whom the molestation of blonde, buff, super-humans was commonplace - smile broadly and rattled her cup of ice chips.

 _Brilliant_. “Do I get put on some sort of register for that? Like, I can’t go near schools now?”

Banner just pinched the bridge of his nose and picked a spot on the wall to focus on.

Really, Darcy wasn’t sure _what_ she remembered. She felt raw, abraded, and she was left with the vague impression of hard concrete against her knees, a hard body against hers… firm fingers stroking and teasing against her-

Thank God Bruce had the foresight to snatch her IV bag so that she didn’t get caught up as she launched herself from the bed. He juggled the bag and Darcy’s flying, clammy limbs as she lurched toward the ensuite hellbent on making it to the toilet before she disgraced herself… y’now, _more_ than she already had.

It was a small mercy that Bruce didn’t try and hold back her hair as she choked out wave after wave of bile. Instead, he stood as far away as the IV would allow, quiet and calm as Darcy tried to pretend that the tears welling in her eyes were from the force of her vomiting and _not_ from the gaping pit of humiliation and fury that had opened up in her chest. A damn long stretch of time passed before she came back to sit on her heels, one shaky hand steadying herself against the toilet seat. Darcy looked up into the mirror over the sink and caught Bruce’s eye, the separation of the mirror gave her the courage to pass her hand angrily over her mouth and speak. “This is balls. Not being myself… not… not _controlling_ myself.”

“Preaching. Choir.” Bruce said as he passed over the bag of fluid and reached for some paper towel.

~*~

Nobody liked hospitals. Well, there were doctors and nurses and probably some other outliers - all respectable people, to be sure - but Steve wasn’t wholly convinced that anybody not on a payroll would enjoy hanging around. He’d never admit it, but they were worse for him. Every scent, every smell, was so much stronger. They’d come a long way from the infirmaries of his youth, over-warm places where men and clucking nurses would look down at him and shake their heads. 

_“Sorry, son, but there’s nothing for it.”_

He had almost perfect recall of the small steam rooms where they’d stash him, only to drag him out later, pink, damp and utterly unchanged. But it wasn’t even the time that _he’d_ spent convalescing that soured him on the places, it was the times he’d been there for his mother, for his father. It was because a hospital in a gutted French château smelled the same as a private clinic in present-day Brooklyn. It was because a death rattle sounded the same no matter what the decade and he’d heard enough of them. Still, for the third night in a row he found himself lingering in the open doorway of Darcy’s room. Stark’s clinic wasn’t huge, it was climate controlled and decorated to look like a ritzy medi-spa right out of some magazine… but for all that the smell of antiseptic was so pungent that he could _taste_ it and the only thing that cut through it was the warm sleepy musk of tiny Darcy Lewis, out for the count and (as always) utterly unaware of his presence.

She was sleeping better than she had the first two nights he’d been to see her, not quite so curled in on herself and her skin wasn’t jumping around on her frame as she tossed. 

As far as Steve knew, only Darcy and one particularly unfortunate Stark R&D lab tech had been admitted to the ward. The night nurse was more than a little absorbed with his Sudoku puzzles and Steve didn’t have to worry about justifying his visit. He wasn’t sure if he _could_ justify the visit. 

He could start to tally the reasons for his visits: it was only right that he check on her, she’d had a nasty shock, he _had_ knocked her out, it was his fault they’d been collared in the first place… but it all broke down the longer he rationalised. It was wrong and sick - _selfish_ \- of him to still feel the way he did; as her lust has dissipated under Banner’s careful treatment his had only mounted. Her smell, her touch, her sounds - they all built and compounded until he was left standing at the foot of her bed, his gut nothing but a nasty conflagration that left him strung-out and shamefaced.

“She’ll go home tomorrow,” Steve had been so wound up that Banner’s approach had gone unnoticed.

“Is she…?” Steve dropped his voice and retreated back into the corridor, closing the door to Darcy’s room as he went.

“Fine. Physically. She always was, you looked after her well.”

Banner had _no_ idea.

“It’s late,” Steve noted as he tried to move away from her door.

“I was leaving,” Bruce explained as he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his trousers, “Just swinging by to check her obs. The formula stabilising her - uh - libido, needed some tweaking. But it’s proven effective.”

If Steve needed an opening to address his concerns, he wasn’t going to get a better one. “Is it possible that I… that there might-”

“Did the blood work myself, Steve, all your levels are perfectly normal. For you, anyway. There were some spikes, but…” Bruce cleared his throat before continuing, “Given the circumstances…”

“There’s nothing you could dose me with? Just to make sure-”

“There’s no cure for old-fashioned lust, Steve.” Bruce was quick to cut him off. “Well, maybe coffee with the object of your-”

This time it was Steve’s turn to cut the conversation short. “I’ll pass.”

Darcy Lewis had been robbed of all choice and agency… and she’d been in his arms the whole damn time.

Not for the first time he felt an unaccountable rush of anger and frustration. He just couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d been robbed of the chance to do something - to _start_ something - important.


	2. Get Down On It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The way he looked down at her, awe and… okay, fine, it looked like indigestion but she was hoping it was more along the lines of thwarted lust finally realised, it made her feel like more than she was, more than she’d ever really be. But if he could buy the lie for the night, then she could sure as Hell sell it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No two-ways about consent in this part. It's all straight up consensual. 
> 
> The chest hair of for Meri. She knows why.

“You missed your first appointment, Lewis.” It’s wasn't weird to find Clint at her desk, it _was_ a little weird that he wasn’t shooting her his customary ladykiller grin. Weirder still that, if he were, she wouldn’t be in the mood to drink it up.

“My first…?” she just settled back into her seat and pulled her empty coffee cup in, as if it were a shield.

Clint’s eyes checked left and right before he leaned in. “You lost your mind for a bit, did things. It happens. Dr Avery helped me, let him help you. Okay?”

It wasn’t okay, but she gave a wan smile and angled her chair away from him.

 

~*~

 

When did lust become obsession? Steve had wasted no small chunk of time mulling over the question and he still wasn't any closer to a definitive answer… or to ridding himself of the persistent echoes of just a handful of moments with a desperate and passionate woman in his arms.

It had been _three_ weeks and what he _did_ know was that he’d been in shady territory for some time now. Decent men didn’t fantasise about stolen, counterfeit, moments of lust. Decent men could make it through a shower without having to touch themselves. Decent men didn’t remember the smell of sweet women like Darcy Lewis, didn’t remember passing his hand over his mouth and catching the faintest taste of her.

Worse still, his mind was fabricating waking fantasies of her. He stalked into the communal gym, his own was a wasteland - missile attack, utterly provoked by Stark - and very nearly snarled at the back end of the woman on the treadmill. She ran at a sedate pace, her attention mostly focussed on a cartoon playing on the flat screen in front of her. From that angle she could have been Darcy, not that Darcy was known for frequenting gyms. Her ponytail and lush behind bounced with cheerful little shocks that echoed her footfalls, her tight sweatpants were clinging on for dear life and while her running technique wasn’t great, he couldn’t fault the overall effect her body was having on him. If he didn’t desperately need to burn off some energy, he would have turned tail and left the gym before even starting. Instead, he passed behind the bank of treadmills just as the wall mounted industrial fan passed over the young woman and -

Sweat and frustration laced with fading perfume, something with orange blossom, smacked him in the face. 

He should have known he couldn’t avoid Darcy forever.

 

~*~

 

Darcy’s sports bra was working overtime as she shuffled along at a just-shy-of-respectable pace on the treadmill. She’d taken to visiting the gym on a semi-regular basis after Avery had suggested that taking charge of just one aspect of her life could help her handle a significant past loss of control. 

Really, the only thing she wanted to take charge of was the carton of Phish Food that she had stashed behind the bulk pack of frozen peas in her freezer. Still, the gym wasn’t without its benefits: she could go during work hours and - seeing that Steve had his own private gym - it was one place she was almost guaranteed never to run into him. Although, three weeks down, it was becoming pretty clear that _he_ was avoiding her about as much as she was avoiding him. She was reaching Romanoffian levels of stealth and evasion. Good. _Great._ Fan-fucking-tastic.

That was what she wanted, right? To not have to relive those humiliating, terrifying moments when her own body had failed her and her own will had fled? To not get hung up on the way Steve had _knocked her unconscious_ rather than deal wither her awful, _awful_ advances. Really, they were both handling it in the most adult way possible: pure and utter avoidance. 

Maybe in a decade or so she’d be able to look him in the face, casually laugh about that one time she’d tried to ride him like a rodeo bull.

Darcy forced her attention back to the flatscreen in front of her as she punched at the speed button, bringing her pace up to a graceless lope. It was a mistake on both counts, as her eyes lifted to the screen a dark scene reflected the face of the man approaching her treadmill, the shock and increased speed combined and - 

Steve’s peak-human reflexes came into play as his hand shot out to smack the STOP button on her treadmill, bringing it - and her - to an abrupt standstill. “Steady,” he murmured as he came to a stop between her treadmill and the next.

“Uh.” What to say? Was there a statute of limitations on conversations about squicky past sexual encounters? Surely if he’d wanted to discuss ‘it’ he’d have brought it up before then? Didn’t seem right to start a conversation with _‘Hey, haven’t seen you since you had your hand in my panties. How you been?’._ “Cap,” she said with a jerky nod as she passed a hand over her ponytail, wincing as her fingers glanced over nothing but unruly flyaway hair.

“Steve,” he corrected as he rested one hand against the rail of her treadmill. To Darcy’s ears it sounded more like one of her school friend’s dads trying to be hip (‘ _Call me Steve, Mr Rogers is my father!_ ’).

“Steve,” she repeated with a small nod. Her eyes roved around the room, from her drink bottle to the TV, passing over objects to the left and right of Steve, greedily scoping him out but not brave enough to settle on his face. God, _that face_. How was Steve Rogers even _real_?

“You look well,” he said as he too did his best to look everywhere _but_ at Darcy. It was a bold-faced lie and, had they a less intimate sort of history, she might have called him on it. She was wearing _spandex_ , squinting without her glasses and needed a shower.

“I’m… yeah. Well. Better. You know, than when you last saw me. Which, you know. Uh. Yeah.” Sweet _Jesus,_ she’d become a female Rain Man. “I meant to, uh, thank you for that. Buy you a muffin or something.”

Did Steve Rogers even eat muffins? Probably the guy lived on kale and protein shakes.

“All in a day’s…” he began, then hesitated. “Well, _no,_ I mean that doesn’t happen ofte- _ever._ ”

“I’m just special like that, huh?” Darcy let her eyes drop to where he was gripping the treadmill, his knuckles were white from the force of his grip and she had some very real concerns for how much longer the steel bar could hold out under his fingers. For the first time since that day in the cell with Steve, Darcy felt some of her old bravery return, her fingers glanced over his tight knuckles as she dropped her face seeking his gaze. “ _Steve,_ ” she said softly, “I’m sorry for what I did.”

His nostrils flared as he sucked in some air, then he lifted his eyes to return her gaze. “You have nothing to apologise for. _Nothing._ ” The way he spoke, the utter conviction in his words almost convinced her. He opened his mouth as if to say something else, paused, stepped back and angrily  speared his hands through his hair as he turned away and left without a word. 

Steve cut his workout short that day, Darcy stretched hers out by another thirty minutes.

 

~*~

 

“Do we know her?" Jane asked as she waved a toothpick toward a passing blonde. 

"She's a Victoria's Secret model," Darcy supplied as she slipped a surreptitious gaze toward the lean bronzed goddess. "You know, as in your underwear."

" _My_ underwear?" Jane asked, puzzled.

"You'd know this, if you ever looked down at the label to check if your panties were on the right way around. _Are_ they on the right way?"

"Hard to say," Jane mused as she looked around and slipped her toothpick into a flower arrangement, "I'm not wearing any."

Darcy fixed Jane with a scandalised look, hors d'oeuvre suspended halfway to her mouth. Jane winked, then chuckled. She was joking. Probably.

"Calm down, Darce. I'm usually the one to get worked up about these things."

"That's because I'm usually at home, sans pants, providing support via text during the commercials of _Antiques Roadshow_. I've never been a plus-one to this sort of thing! I'm not good at this front line stuff, I'm all about support and logistics."

"It's an art exhibition, Darce, not the Siege of Leningrad."

But that was where Jane was wrong. It was a _Stark Industries_ funded exhibition, ostensibly to showcase art that took cues from hard science. Avengers abounded and she was so far beyond her own social strata that it wasn’t even funny, even if she was now on a first name basis with Thor and Banner… well, Steve too if their weird episode at the gym counted. 

Darcy snagged a glass of champagne from a passing tray and scoped out Stark Tower's foyer, it had been transformed by the artistic installation. The marble and chrome space was stuffed full with macro photography, a piece that gave a nod to the colours of the Bifrost, fractal art and that one guy who was carving sculptures out of quarts of his own frozen blood (Darcy failed to see how that was either art _or_ sanitary, but she kept her opinion to herself). Not that it wasn’t a pretty premium sort of place at the best of times, but that evening it looked like the sort of place Darcy would only ever get into if she were in a pantsuit, bussing trays. 

As it was, she wasn’t looking too shabby in a thrifted scarlet Hervé Leger number which (even second-hand) had put a significant dent in her bank account. The dress was a size too small and an inch or two too short but, with Darcy’s eye for a perfectly matching lipstick, it did the job… And if Steve Rogers happened to finally see her in something other than a desperate state of sweaty disarray… well great.

“Sweet Jesus, normal people!” Darcy looked around to see who the sweeping announcement had been aimed at, but as they stood offset from the bulk of the partygoers it was fairly obvious that it had been intended for them. It was also a dead giveaway that Tony Stark was fast approaching with arms spread wide, a magnum of champagne in one hand. “I spent fifteen minutes talking about a sculpture before anyone dared to tell me that it was a God damn trash can. I mean, did I pay for that? Did I bankroll someone to design fancy trash cans? Christ. Don’t drink that swill they’ve got doing the rounds. Gimme…” he snatched her glass and downed it with a grimace before awkwardly juggling his bottle - _of Cristal_ \- and replenishing her drink. 

Tony Stark, ladies and gentlemen, nothin’ but class.

“Lewis, right?” He narrowed his eyes at her as he passed off the bottle to a passing waiter, “Steve’s girl. Sex pollen.”

“It was a gas,” Darcy snapped, irritated at being defined by one awful incident.

“Interesting. It’s a sensitive topic for _both_ of you.” Stark stroked his woeful facial hair, eyeing her as if she’d suddenly become fascinating. 

Darcy shuffled uncomfortably on her peeptoes. “It’s the sort of thing that sticks in a girl’s mind. To think…” She gave an involuntary shudder and downed her drink, “You have no idea. If that stuff is just _out_ there…”

“ _‘Out there’_? Kid, Steve came down so hard on the hacks in that lab that they’ll piss themselves before even looking sideways at a My First Microscope set. The man single-handedly set the field of biochemistry back by about a decade. Speaking of _chemistry…_ ” Tony thrust his chin, indicating a position across the foyer.

Steve was more than a head taller than the group he stood with, his superhuman senses must have been firing on all cylinders because he looked up at the exact same moment that Darcy did. If she’d had her way, she would have scripted the sequence that followed like something out of French cinema. You know, heated glances, chic soundtrack, general sexiness. Totally not what happened. Their eyes did meet - that much went according to plan - then it went downhill. Steve stuttered mid-conversation, his nostrils flared and he looked very much like he had a nasty case of indigestion. One impossibly large hand smoothed down the front of his obviously bespoke single-breasted charcoal suit as he pointedly looked away, jaw ticking erratically.

_Well, shit._ Darcy got it, she _really_ did. She’d fucked up, but damned if she was going to own it as her own personal fuck up. What had gone down between them had happened just as much to her as it had to him, her time with Avery had taught her that much. The smart thing to do would be to let it ride, the guy had a metric shit-ton of issues that clearly had nothing to do with her, she had a comparable set of issues too. Unfortunately, her issues were firmly entrenched in the memory of a Hellish heat and a sickening desire experienced while plastered against his chest. She was barely starting to claw back some semblance of control, finally able to think of sex without mild panic and, _yeah,_ he was pretty fucking tightly linked with her libido resuming ops normal. How could he not be? She’d been warm for his form long before she got gassed and there he was looking like some rogue GQ cover model, all blonde and sharp-featured, commanding a gaggle of political movers and shakers… but not even able to look her in the eye. Ugh.

Darcy passed her empty glass off to Jane, tucked her clutch under her arm and squared off her shoulders. “Darcy,” Jane held her up with a hand to the forearm, “Discretion is, y’know, the better part of valour.”

“This from a woman who routinely fellates a man who can _summon lightning_ when he gets excited,” Darcy muttered as she marched off in Steve’s direction.

He could see her coming. _Oh, yeah he could._ She watched as his eyes kept flicking to her, his attention divided between his conversation and her approach. Darcy never really reckoned on living to see a day when Captain America looked _fucking terrified_ , much less at the prospect of her presence in a crowded room, but it was what it was. The exhibition wasn’t exactly a mad crush, but it was fairly well packed out, so it only seemed mildly rude when Darcy plotted her trajectory so that she moved just behind Steve, clipping him hard in the small of the back with her elbow as she passed him. Almost immediately he started making his excuses to the group he was talking to, but Darcy didn’t slow her pace until she stood alone facing an installation at the far side of the foyer.

Her high heel tapped with irritation as she crossed her arms and stared hard at a watercolour rendering of the human endocrine system (or so the plate beneath the canvas explained). Fitting, she supposed.

“Miss Lewis.” Steve was throwing off heat as he sidled up to her and stood at a respectable distance, squinting uncomfortably up at the painting.

“ _Captain Rogers_ ,” she sniffed, a little of her ire fleeing with him standing right next to her. 

“I, uh, I thought I told you to call me Steve?” he said, nervously unbuttoning and re-buttoning his suit jacket.

“Yeah,” Darcy snapped as she smacked him in the arm with her clutch, “But you also said that what happened in that… well, _you know._ You said I had nothing to apologise for, then you bug out like my presence disgusts you. Tonight you looked at me like I was a fucking leper. It’s uncool, man. _Way uncool_. I get that you might not want to be around me, that’s your choice. But what right do you have to look at me and make me feel… I don’t know… _dirty?_ ”

“What?” There was steel in Steve’s voice as he spun to face her, his hand coming up to clamp around her upper arm. “No. _No._ ” He’d been too loud, a few heads popped up and scanned toward them. Steve released her arm quickly and turned back to face the painting. “Little lady, you could _not_ be more wrong.”

“Oh, so this is just how you respond to everyone? Must be a PR nightmare for Coulson.”

“Not everyone. You.”

“So there _is_ a problem?”

“No.” He passed his hand roughly over his jaw. “ _Yes,_ but not you. _Me_. _I_ have problems with you.”

Because that wasn’t confusing. Maybe she didn't want to know what his deal was after all. She made a small noise of frustration and jabbed one heel into the floor, narrowing her eyes at her toes.

A small, painful silence stretched between them before Steve finally spoke. “You don’t want to hear it. It’s awful, not to mention humiliating.”

“Well, I mean, our relationship - such as it is - seems founded on my humiliation. So what’s a little more?”  
  
“Knowing this won’t put you at ease, kid. You ain’t the dirty one here, I am,” Steve made the confession with flushed cheeks and a low voice. His head dropped low and Darcy had to dig her nails into the palm of her hand to stop herself from reaching out to him. He shut his eyes and took a fortifying breath, then fixed his eyes on her as his lips twisted in pathetic attempt at a grin. “You might want to get a drink to throw in my face after, I’ll wait.”

“Didn’t take you for a coward, Cap.”

Darcy could hear the gears kicking over in his head as he carefully selected his words, she wasn’t totally sure what she expected. Some old school Catholic guilt that she wouldn’t get, probably. Maybe some imagined slight or faux pas that Steve had been mistakenly harbouring for-

“I want to bed you, Darcy. _Desperately_.” Her jaw dropped a little and Steve held up his hand to wave off any reply. “Now I know it’s wrong. I know what happened between us wasn’t what you wanted and that’s what makes it so awful.” He was on a roll, it seemed, because he continued to stare doggedly at the watercolour as he continued his speech. “I’m sick with wanting you, Darcy. I got people left and right telling me I’m a hero and I’d give anything - _anything_ \- to have been a villain for just an hour with you, take what you were offering. I didn’t want to do the right thing by you, kid. I wanted to take you on the floor of that grimy little cell a thousand times over until whatever madness had a hold of you had eased.” His momentum faltered and he sucked in a breath as his eyes flicked to her. “You oughta hate me for that, hate me for _still_ feeling that way.”

She kinda _did_ need a drink after hearing all that, but not to throw at him. Darcy wanted to be confused, alarmed at what he’d said. It was hard to buy that a guy like Steve could be caught up in lust and not have an outlet for it, but if she was truthful a lot of her own sexual mojo was concentrated around Steve. The few weeks following the gassing had left her feeling numb, as though the part of her that desired had become desensitised, was overused and calloused… but there stood Steve, both frank and painfully embarrassed, his words and unsettled stance starting a familiar burn beneath her skin. It was good. _Welcome._ “Just because I acted under duress once doesn’t mean that I haven’t felt that need for you before… or since. You should know that. But should I really believe that all this weirdness is just because you were a little hard for…?”

“Believe it. Feels like whatever they hit you with has been slowly releasing in me ever since.”

_Niiice._ “And?” They both still stood facing the painting, but Darcy shuffled a little closer to him.

“You really want to hear this?” Steve didn’t sound _completely_ scandalised, just a little breathless.

“It helps.”

“How? Can’t undo what you went through. Can’t undo the way I had to hurt you to make it stop. How could it possibly help?”

Darcy let out a frustrated little huff of air. “It feels like - I don't know - _control_.”

“A-and you like that?” 

Yeah, she did. “I like knowing that I haven’t lost it.”

“There’s more. So much more that I could say.”

“So say it.”

Next to her Steve made a faint choking sound, but quickly regained some semblance of calm. “I - uh - I could do that.” He cleared his throat and scanned the immediate area to ensure they wouldn’t be overheard. “I, uh-” More throat clearing, “After I got you clear of that place, got you to hospital, I had to… I had to be alone. You understand?”

Understand? She was pretty much fist pumping the air. “Gonna need more than that, Steve.”

“Thought about you while I… uh.”

“Jacked off?” Darcy slipped that in with a crooked grin, but the heat in Steve’s answering look wiped it right off her face.

“Yeah. Like some dumb kid, on my knees in the shower jerking my - my cock, sucking two fingers into my mouth because they still had the taste of you on them.” 

Darcy shivered and felt something ghost across her thigh, her eyes shot down and she noticed that Steve’s hand was hanging by his thigh, very near to the skin exposed just beneath the hem of her dress. He stroked her again, just above the knee, a slow and deliberate drag of calloused fingertips. She had to hand it to him though, to anyone across the room they still looked like two people just casually admiring a painting. Hell, Steve was an artist, wasn’t he? People probably didn’t even think it weird that they’d been staring right up at it for more than five minutes. Fuckin’ Steve. The man was ruining her for all others and onlookers had no fucking idea.

“We could… I mean…” _God,_ how hard could it be to ask a man if he’d let you sit on his face? “You have a room? Somewhere?”

“Upstairs. I think. Tony mentioned it once but I never needed it.”

“Think you might need it soon.”

“That so?”

 

~*~

 

_Not_ pressing Darcy up against the wall and having his way with her in full view of the upper echelon of the contemporary art scene was one of the greatest shows of self-restraint that he had ever managed to pull off. Steve was a little out of his mind, still riding a high after Darcy’s calm acceptance of his attraction. The things that had come out of his mouth… 

Steve grabbed Darcy’s wrist, using her surprise and his own momentum to propel them toward the nearest exit. He had the vaguest notion that it was an emergency stairwell, little used, hopefully empty. Truth was, it could have been a door to a busy street corner and he still planned on getting his mouth on any - and every - inch of her exposed skin the second they got there. If anyone noticed their hasty exit, they didn’t speak. Just as well, because Steve wasn’t stopping. A few feet shy of the door Darcy stumbled on her heels and he simply pulled her tighter into his side so that her feet barely touched the ground at all.

They burst into the stairwell with a little more force than he’d intended and were stopped short as they nearly bowled over a suited young man - Stark security. Darcy let out a shocked little gasp, but Steve wasn’t playing around. He pointed a finger at the kid, then jabbed his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the door. “Son, you’re going to leave. _Now_.”

The kid might have replied with a snappy ‘Yes, sir’, but Steve was beyond listening as he pressed Darcy up against the concrete wall with his body, crowding her as he planted his hands against the wall either side of her head in a feeble attempt to keep himself from overwhelming her.

Steve knew damn well that he had no right to ask more of Darcy than a simple kiss. Hauling her away from public, mauling her, saying such _blue_ things to her in a public space… he deserved to be horsewhipped. He _knew_ that and just the second he could catch his breath (and his sanity) he’d kiss her - and make it _good_ \- then escort her back to the exhibition. His forehead dropped, he meant to rest it softly against her shoulder as he sucked in a few breaths and he did, for a second, but then there was his nose bumping against the obscenely perfect swell of her breast and there were her hands in his hair and her soft chuckles in his ear.

In the end, he resigned himself to being an A Class jerk, but at least he was a jerk with his face planted firmly in Darcy Lewis’ cleavage. Steve was halfway to Hell and determined to make it worth the trip, his hands slipped from the wall to frame her breasts, his long fingers tucking into the neck of her dress and tugging as he turned his face slightly and pressed an open-mouthed kiss against her soft pale skin. Darcy smelled of champagne, something sweet like violet… he groaned against her warm skin, his best intentions shot to Hell as he gave the top half of her dress another neat little tug until another inch of silken skin slipped free so that he could sweep his tongue cautiously across the plump flesh, he pressed his luck as his tongue ventured lower, dipping beneath the lace edge of her bra and finding her nipple as he waited for her to push him away.

It’s was coming, it _had_ to be. After the way he’d behaved, avoiding her and being a jerk, it was a miracle that she’d even spoken to him. He’d steal a few more seconds, a little more of the taste of her - nothing compared to what he’d sucked from his fingers all those weeks ago - but still a heady mix of moisturiser, woman and the damp lace brushing at the underside of his tongue. Next to his cheek her bangles clinked and her fingertips brushed past the sensitive shell of his ear, he didn’t dwell on it when his hands slipped up from her dress to capture her slim wrists, bringing them up above her head and pinning them against the wall. 

He’d stop, _he would_. But first he’d put forward a compelling case for coffee… for her to let him try again. To be _better_ than the fumbling, angry ass he’d been so far. Steve wanted to give her something to think on, something that was _hers_ , a hot concealed moment that was untouched by pollens, or gasses, or… anything that wasn’t _him._

His thigh pressed between her legs and - to his shock - she let him. Almost unconsciously he began to move, pressing and rubbing his thigh against her, letting it spread her legs wider, pushing her skirt up…

“I should stop,” he whispered as he drew his head back up, afraid to meet her eyes.

 

~*~

 

“Hgnngh,” the throughly unsexy noise escaped her throat at the mere mention of him stopping. _It was just getting good!_

Steve Rogers was a heart rending mixture of in-charge (hot as fuck) and uncertain (apparently _also_ hot as fuck)… He seemed stuck, unsure if he was coming or going (Darcy knew which option had her vote). She wouldn’t push him for more than he could handle, but with his hard thigh pressing against her _just_ _so,_ her wrists captured in his hands and the fabric of her bra spit-slick and catching the draft in the stairwell she guessed that a little light encouragement wouldn’t go amiss. “Do you want to stop?” she asked softly, trying not to be obvious as she rocked her hips against his thigh. 

“Lord, _no.”_

_“_ Then carry on, soldier,” Darcy said with a crooked grin. In an instant he released her, dropping to his knees as his hands skimmed up her bare thighs pushing her dress up as he went. Her eyes went a little wide as she scanned the deserted stairwell. Surely he wasn’t going to-

What he lacked in finesse, he made up for in enthusiasm. Steve wasted no time in gently bending one of Darcy’s knees and perching it on his shoulder as he turned his face inward, pressing his mouth - open and blowing heated breath against the pretty purple lace of her panties - high between her thighs. He flattened his tongue against the fabric, a groan emanating from his chest and sending small vibrations through her as his huge hands began to coast up and down her thighs in a strangely comforting rhythm. She desperately wanted to spear her fingers into his hair, steer him, _command._ But it wasn't just some skeevy one night stand on his knees in front of her - it was Captain-freakin’-America… worse, it was _Steve._ The stairwell might rate among the bottom three locales that she’d ever managed to get freaky - but somehow Steve elevated it to something a little more… _more._ There was a slight tremor in Steve’s hand, a small tell, as he slipped his fingers from her thigh to tuck her damp (fine, _soaked_ ) panties aside. “Like those,” Steve murmured against her. “Like this more,” he continued before brushing his bottom lip against her bare pussy, “Soft.” Darcy sent up a silent prayer to the Gods of Depilation for having the foresight to slip a discount voucher into the Sunday paper. Steve gripped the leg braced on his shoulder, jostling it a little to turn her thigh out further, opening her to him. She was left to wobble on the one heel still in contact with the floor, her hands scrambling to hold onto something and spreading through his perfectly combed hair. It would have been embarrassing if not for the rapt expression on his face. 

Long lashes fluttered against his cheek as he sighed, puffing warm air against her wet flesh, the guy had the eyelashes of a fucking My Little Pony. It was ridiculous. He led with his tongue as he leaned back in to draw it over her and up to bump - once, twice, around - her clit. Steve didn’t fuck around down there, he had her lady parts _sussed_ and Darcy happily dismissed all rumours about his lack of experience. Steve Rogers was a gentleman, sure, but he wasn’t exactly pure as the driven snow and Darcy could not have been any happier to work that out.

Long fingers continued to knead her thigh as his tongue swept over her in infuriatingly languorous strokes. He got that they were on a schedule, right? 

“Unghf,” Darcy raked her fingernails over his scalp as he traced the neat lines of her labia with his tongue, then used it to press her clit against his top lip, moving and working at it until she started to skip and choke on her own breaths. “St-Steve. Fu- _fuck._ ” Darcy almost immediately regretted swearing. Probably for Steve that was a turn-off.  “Sorry.”

“Mmm,” Steve mumbled against her pussy, “Such a dirty mouth.” Darcy could have almost sworn that she _felt_ him grinning against her.

She could hear the sharp and uneven intake and release of breath, the ragged sound so foreign until she realised that it was _her_ breathing that echoed so loudly through the stairwell. Steve made for a skilful and diligent partner and even if her mind did keep throwing out information about hard linoleum and public places she was so very reluctant to push him away, to stop what he was doing.  For all their frantic movement, shaking hands and stilted breaths it was an easy lust to slip into. Good and right.

Between her thighs Steve’s fingers wound more tightly into the fabric of her panties, his other hand gripping her thigh more securely as he licked and tasted and - _sweet Jesus_ \- slipped his tongue up into her.

Her fingers tugged at the neat golden lengths of his hair, pulling his head back. “You gotta quit it, dude,” she said on a sad little sigh. “As pretty as you’d look in a mug shot on charges for public lewdness, I don’t think I could handle getting a rep as the woman who led a national icon astray.” She gently ruffled his hair, then stroked two fingers down over his cheek.

There was a frustrated huff of air against her thigh just seconds before Steve leaned in to pointedly drag his tongue over Darcy’s pussy in a frank challenge, his eyes never leaving hers. He sat back on his heels, eyebrow arched as he took his time fussing over her panties, moving them back into place and smoothing over them with fingers that were just a little too involved in the process. Not for the first time, Darcy got a glimpse of a man that she’d very much like to get to know outside of the bedroom (inside the bedroom, also, but did that _really_ need to be said?).

“You’re right,” he said, words slightly skewed as he sucked on his bottom lip, then ran his tongue over his top lip. Darcy managed a blush at that and Steve angled his body away, fastening and unfastening his jacket button nervously. “I’m sorry, Darcy. I shouldn’t have… I’ll take you back out there.” He cleared his throat and turned from her a little more, “In a minute.”

Oh. _Oh._ Darcy settled herself back onto two feet and craned her neck to try and peek around Steve - because, really, _who wouldn’t?_ Also: “I thought we were going upstairs?”

Steve spun back to her, shoulders a little less slumped, he no longer seemed bothered by the frankly _indecent_ way that his cock was pressing against his trousers. “That’s… that’s a thing that you would want? Still?”

More so, actually. “Is there an echo in this building? I could have sworn we covered off on this in the foyer?”

Steve’s answering smile would be forever filed away in Darcy’s memory as one of the sweetest, most honest smiles she’d ever seen. He didn’t waste any time in reaching for her hand, tangling his fingers with hers and tugging her toward the stairs. Two flights up, Darcy started to feel a little warm - and it was only partly because of the way Steve’s ass looked encased in tailored formal trousers. “What floor is this room on?”

“Fifty-three?”

Darcy came to a stop so hard that one of her heels squealed against the linoleum beneath her. “And you think I’m _taking stairs?_ ”

“No stairs?”

“Not if you expect me to actively participate in any sexual intercourse you might have been planning.”

Steve also stumbled to a halt. “I could carry you?”

“I was thinking elevator.”

“Carrying you gets my hands back on you.”

“Elevator gets you inside of me a _lot_ quicker.”

It took a few seconds for them to orient themselves and scatter toward a door, Darcy spotted the stainless steel door of the elevator and snagged Steve by a lapel to drag him over. “Yo, J-man, fifty-three, _s’il vous plait_.”

“Of course, Miss Lewis.” JARVIS answered through the fitted sound system. “Will there be anything else?”

Darcy softly smacked her lips as she released Steve then replied, “You wouldn’t happen to have a… stealth mode?”

“I have a discretion function, unless security dictates, I will encrypt and archive all further input from your location.”

“‘Preciate it.”

Seconds passed and then a soft pan flute version of _The Girl from Ipanema_ started playing. Darcy slipped her eyes toward Steve and busted him eyeing her with the same sort of giddy shock. Maybe she _did_ want JARVIS to take a few happy snaps, like when she’d taken a ride on Space Mountain at Disneyland and needed a photographic memento just to remind herself how awesome it had been. Not that she dwelled on it for long, because the level display kicked past the fourteenth floor and _BAM_ she was smooshed between the elevator wall and Steve’s impressive bulk. Credit where it was due, she didn’t even see Steve move. He had some mad moves when it came to the sexytimes. Given that, it was a bit of a relief when he turned out to be an awful kisser. Darcy wasn’t complaining, it was nice to know that the guy wasn’t great at everything. Odd, though, that he seemed to have better luck with his mouth when applying it to other parts of her body. Even his hands, as they roamed and kept her hard up against the wall, were doing some damn fine work. His mouth, however, just a little too hard up against her own, lips resolutely sealed shut…

“Shhhteve,” Darcy spoke against his lips. “Shhht-”

He pulled back and frowned at her. “That bad?” His lack of mouth-on-mouth mojo didn’t seem to be a surprise to him.

“B -, needs work,” Darcy winked at him as she ran her hands up and over his shoulders, “Lucky I’m a great tutor. If you could open your mouth a little…”

“You aren’t the first, you know.”

“Yeah, I kind of figured that out when you had your tongue in my-”

“ _Kiss._ ” Steve jostled her playfully, then pulled her away from the wall, her hand firmly in his as they arrived at their floor and the led her down the corridor. “You aren’t the first to critique my kissing.”

“Have you been running around kissing a lot of women, then?” Darcy asked casually as they arrived at a door and Steve produced a Stark ID card from his breast pocket.

“Only ones who like to tell me how bad I am at it.”

“And no remedial action with the others? No lengthy tutorials or do-overs to rectify the shortfall?” It was a lot harder than Darcy would have thought to ask a question like that and _not_ come off sounding a little crazed and overly proprietary.

“Jealous, Lewis?”

Darcy snorted and made a grab for the card, then jabbed a stiff finger against Steve’s chest and pressed until he eased his back up against the door. “Open your mouth, _Rogers_.”

Tiny lines formed on his forehead as he frowned, but complied anyway.

“Less open,” Darcy spoke up toward his gaping jaw, “We’re not playing Hungry Hungry Hippos here.” She tapped his knee with her thigh until he took the hint and slipped down the door a little, at the same time he closed his mouth until his lips were _just_ parted. Darcy grinned, more than a little satisfied by the thought of having 6’2” of peak human (not to mention prime beefcake) ready and waiting for her direction. Her fingers wrapped around his tie, it was an expensive thing, not a clip-on deal like she’d come to expect from her usual class of guys. She tugged the tie, bringing him down a little more until she could sweep her lips across his. The first sweep was just that, a fleeting brush. The second was a slow drag that transferred half of her lipstick to his mouth. She moved her tongue the third time, tracing his lips and catching the taste of… well. “You taste like _me,_ ” she whispered. 

“I taste _good_ then,” he purred in response and Darcy nearly swallowed her tongue. She kissed him again, just to shut the smug bastard up, insinuating her bottom lip between his and using it to lever his mouth open enough to slip her tongue in, just enough to brush it teasingly against the tip of his. Steve groaned, his fingers dropping to grip at her hips, pulling her forward as he let his tongue jab forward, clumsy and a little too wet. Darcy nipped at him, slipped her tongue against his again, then pulled her mouth away and reached past him to swipe into the room.

“Not bad,” she said brightly as she stepped past him, “You’ve just graduated to a B +.”

The room was lovely, the sort Darcy would expect at a fancy hotel. It was large enough to have a sofa, table and something that might qualify as a kitchenette. A king-sized bed dominated the room, swathed in pristine and undoubtedly high thread-count white bedding. There were two other doors, likely an ensuite and wardrobe, but Darcy’s needs were met by the presence of the bed, so she didn't feel the need to explore further.

Steve closed the door behind them, stepping into the room with a single point of focus - _her._ So much for his famed situational awareness. It made her giddy to size him up and come to the startling realisation that for that night - for those few hours - the skittish, breathless, mountain of man standing across the room was _hers._ Darcy kicked off her heels, stepping down to the plush carpet underfoot and angling her head even further up to catch Steve’s eyes. He kept a safe distance, didn’t block the door, almost as if he was letting her know that she was free to leave if she chose. Instead, she let her eyes drift down over the spectacular cut of his suit, past the peek of black leather belt and down to… well, his pants would have fit him quite well at a resting state, but the thick ridge of his arousal had Darcy’s eyes going wide. 

She wondered if he’d think her a ‘floozy’… or something equally outmoded, maybe a ‘light skirt’? _No, not Steve._ Darcy dismissed the thought as she popped two bangles from her wrist and tossed them toward the sofa.

“If you’re waiting for a green light,” Darcy said with a nod toward her shoes, “That was it.”

Once more the time-space continuum did something funky, because she blinked and suddenly Steve was _there,_ crowding her with his bulk, fingertips brushing across her cleavage, down over her hips, up her thighs and…

It was past time for Darcy to be a little bold. She came up onto her toes, clumsy fingers first unbuttoning his jacket, then spreading out beneath the fabric to push it up and off his shoulders. There was an immensity about him that she found compelling, not just the breadth of his shoulders, but the way that his warmth licked at the air around him. It wasn’t intimidating - not unless he wanted it to be - and to Darcy it was welcoming. It was a haven to press herself into, a place to forget that at the end of the day she was just another mildly pretty twenty-something with eighteen dollars in her purse (probably less in her bank account) and a brittle, worthless, degree… one of a cast of millions. The way he looked down at her, awe and… okay, _fine_ , it looked like indigestion but she was hoping it was more along the lines of thwarted lust finally realised, it made her feel like more than she was, more than she’d ever really be. But if he could buy the lie for the night, then she could sure as Hell sell it.

The fine cotton of his dress shirt pulled taut around his biceps as his arms came up to wrap around her, his large hands spanning the small of her back, his pinkies brushing against the top curve of her ass.

“Not gonna be shy now, are ya, Steve?” Darcy whispered as she shimmied her hips softly, brushing against the very obvious bulge between them.

His hands shifted until he was firmly gripping her ass. “Better?” he smirked down at her, some of his bravado returned.

“Much. Too many clothes though.”

“Miss Lewis,” his fingers gripped her a little more enthusiastically, “I’m shocked. Was this your plan all along? To get me alone and naked?”

Darcy snorted and pushed back. “Undress yourself, hotshot. M’done waiting.”

A beat passed between them, then they silently and efficiently (sort of) set about the business of shedding their clothes. They weren’t undressing to seduce. The seduction was a fait accompli. Clothes fell in careless heaps, no longer necessary and only a hindrance to the ultimate goal of skin-on-skin sexytimes.

Hair snagged in zippers (Darcy’s), a button flew (Steve’s), Darcy’s bra released like a spring under load and Steve downed trousers and briefs in one surprisingly clumsy motion. It wasn’t until they were both standing at the foot of the bed, Steve trying to surreptitiously toe off his one remaining sock, while Darcy was breathlessly shoving her hair back, that they realised they were both _finally_ naked and - _ugh, can he see the red marks my bra left?_

Steve took a half-step toward Darcy, the bob of his stiff cock drawing her eyes. He faltered, looked down at himself and passed his palm across the obvious display of arousal. It started as a coy movement, accompanied by a blush that ran down to his chest… but the second he touched himself his hand flexed, wrapped around his length and gave a reflexive pull as he groaned softly. He looked back to Darcy, the stuttered moment of self-consciousness forgotten as he gained momentum and crossed the foot of the bed to join her.

It was a shock when they stepped into each other - the intimacy of their bare skin touching was a jolt that Darcy hadn’t counted on. Without clothes Steve went from a comforting warmth to a feverish state that jumped to her own body as soon as they touched. They edged toward frenzy again, Steve’s hands back to her ass as he lifted her with the good grace to make only the slightest ‘ _ooof’_ sound as he did so and, _whatever,_ because Darcy was mostly sure her weight wasn’t more than he could take, but just to be safe she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and locked her legs around his hips. They kissed again and Darcy got the feeling that Steve was really working toward an A+ in the kissing stakes. Too bad she fully intended on holding out on deeming him a competent kisser until she’s had enough of kissing him. Which probably wouldn't be until she’d been dead for a couple of decades. Long fingers swept up, fanning out over the small of her back and pressing her tighter against him. The move brought her into intimate contact with Steve, her thighs spread wide and her wet pussy glancing across his stomach as he dipped his knees and leaned over the bed before leaving her to hang onto him as he crawled them onto the mattress.

Darcy’s back hit the soft comforter and she scooted back as Steve remained on his knees at the end of the bed. Steve coughed into his fist, blushed to his ears and mumbled something. Darcy caught the word ‘pill’.

“Sorry, Steve,” she came up onto her elbows. Not sure if she should try and cross her arms or something. “I wasn’t- there hasn’t been anyone for a while so I’m not taking-”

“Not _you,_ ” he cleared his throat gently and passed a nervous hand over the back of his neck. “ _Me._ I take a contraceptive pill, something I picked up at Stark Medical.”

“Neat,” Darcy said with a smile as she relaxed a little and eased her knees open, “Makes more sense to shoot a blank than to fire a live round at Kevlar.”

“Sweetheart, it’s all very much live down there. Just ain’t going to get you into any unexpected trouble…”

Wouldn’t get her pregnant, maybe, but Darcy had a feeling that she was already in pretty deep trouble where Steve was concerned. “Nice to meet a man who’s prepared. Were you a scout?”

Steve’s brow furrowed at that, “Not really. They, uh… I wasn't allowed. I had asthma. But Bucky stole some books for us and we had our own chapter. Two punk kids, accidentally setting trash cans alight.” The memory dissipated a little of their desperation and settled over the room like a soft sheet floating down over them. 

“C’mere, punk kid,” Darcy coaxed with a lame-ass wink and a crooked finger.

 

~*~

 

In a life lived so frequently in the public eye, with people screaming out for transparency and accountability, it was a private moment and it was _his_. Inch after inch of perfect woman was spread out before him, more than he deserved. He knew he’d guard those moments with Darcy greedily, prolonging them selfishly and boorishly protecting the privacy of the slide of her soft skin against his as if it were more precious than the most deeply encoded missive. Darcy Lewis was his new secret. Redacted, swathed in a haze of intense concealment, known only to him, knowing only _of_ him.

Something rattled loose in his skull, told him to cool his jets before he did something nuts - like ask her to be his steady. Still, the fire in his gut wasn’t going to ease until he’d had her and wasn’t it just _damn lucky_ that she was his to have? Steve passed a sweaty palm down over his tensed thigh as he sat back on his heels. Where to start with a girl like Darcy? He didn’t want her thinking he was green, she wasn’t his first. She was, however, his first since Roosevelt was in office. Steve wasn’t too sure he needed her figuring that out, so it was just safer that he get about being a damn good lover.

Even if he wasn’t much chop as a kisser.

He started with her foot, because any good tactician knew that getting the lay of the land was vital if they planned on conquering. Not that he’d _conquer_ her. He was just setting up a strong foundation, giving himself options. Maybe he’d want to have her again. Maybe he’d…

Maybe he’d stop being a dirty liar and pretending like he was indifferent about the way they played out. Steve braced her foot against his shoulder, lifting her leg and bending it at the knee while he tried not to lose himself in the wicked sight of her. Pale and pink and spread wide, her sweet pussy glistening from his mouth and her own wicked lust… it was hard not to lose his head and rush to his target. “Pretty,” he murmured with a crooked grin, his eyes fixing between her thighs. What he meant was ‘perfect’, ‘devastating’, _‘mine’,_ but ‘pretty’ seemed safe and so it made the cut. He released her leg, letting it drop back to the bed before he slipped his hands behind her knees, dragging her down the bed, opening her wider and planting his hips neatly between her thighs. 

Her generous breasts bounced in the wake of the movement and he curled down over them, capturing one sweet nipple between his lips. His fingertips slipped up her thighs, skimmed the curve of her hips and dipped beneath the small of her back as he wrapped his arms round her and drew her chest up so that he could pay due attention to her breasts. Breasts like Darcy’s demanded a _lot_ of attention, he decided as he moved from one to the other, languidly dragging his tongue across her skin and scraping just the barest promise of teeth against her.

Her nails raked through his hair, down his neck and across his shoulders and - not for the first time - he cursed the fact that he healed to quickly to ever know the satisfaction of seeing a woman’s nails score the flesh of his shoulders. “Steve,” she breathed into his ear as her red-tipped fingernails dug into him, “ _Please_. Don’t make me beg. Not like _then._ ”

One last, long, suck on her nipple and he came back up, sitting on his heels as he looked down at her once more. He felt giddy, jumped-up on adrenaline and ridden hard by a surge of lust that had been too long denied. He reached down and gripped her knees, spreading them, pressing them up until she held them in place. 

“You ready?” he asked as he rolled his heavy sac in his hand, then gripped the aching shaft of his cock. He pressed the thick head of his cock against Darcy’s clit, teasing her, waiting.

She whimpered. “If I were any more ready I’d be lit up like Johnny Storm.”

Steve rolled his eyes, he wasn’t in the mood to hear about that smug asshole. He pressed his dick down through the slick flesh of her pussy, then shifted his hips and pressed forward, one thumb coming up to further part her lower lips so that he had a clear view as just his tip made that first, gut-churning slip into her. Heat skittered along his sternum and his shoulders bunched with exertion as he felt the beginning of a sheen of sweat break out across his body. Even just that inch, that laughable penetration, was laying waste to any pretensions of finesse that he might have had. He desperately wanted to tell her how _tight_ she was, how _wet_. Wanted to slam home and rob her of breath and sanity. 

So he did.

Her throaty scream bounced off the walls as he stared down, held in thrall by the sight of the vibrant pink of her slick cunt gripping near the base of his cock. Steve huffed up a lost little noise, _fuh…_

“T-too much?” he asked as he fought to marshal himself (better late than never) and still his hips.

Darcy’s choked little laugh caught him off-guard. She gripped one knee, pulling it higher as she angled her hips upward. “Now isn’t the time to pull your punches, Cap.”

“ _Steve,_ ” he bit out as he grabbed her other knee and pressed that up against her chest.

“Mmm, call you whatever you like as long as you _fuck me_.”

Never had an order been more happily received. His thighs flexed as he eased back, just a bit, then surged forward enough to make her full breasts bounce. If he hadn’t already been desperately clinging to his self-control, he might have made a game of seeing how much he could make her beautiful tits respond to his thrusts. She made the most outrageously fucking wonderful noises as he moved in her. Sighs, rich throaty laughs and shocked gasps - each one filed away in a memory that was woefully short on happy sound bites. Darcy wasn’t a mild lover, either. She moved and bucked and clawed, essentially doing everything in her power to make sure that he wouldn’t last more than a minute or two.

The toes of one foot dug into his abdomen as she scraped her nails across his nipple, her bottom lip crushed between her teeth as she hissed wordlessly.

Steve faced the very real fear that he was moments from failing her as a man. Held fast in the tight clench of her body, besieged by the sights and sounds and smells of their fucking… he was moments from the strongest climax of his life and that wasn’t something he was prepared to do without Darcy right there with him.

Panic furrowed his brow as he slowed, setting a more sedate pace as he focussed on the hypnotic drive and retreat of his slicked cock pounding into Darcy. 

“Steve?” her soft questioning voice nearly undid him, he focussed even harder, the first bead of sweat tracing down between his shoulders.

“Just… just need a minute to- _calm._ Need to get you there.”

“Hey, no,” she tilted his chin up, made him look at her, “Nope. I got this, won’t take a minute.”

Between their bodies her hand slipped down over the soft curve of her stomach, over her pale silken skin until her middle and forefinger framed her clit and began touching herself, building from a gentle rhythm to something a little more in keeping with the frantic tattoo of his own heart. “Harder,” she demanded after just a few seconds.

“Me?”

“Who the fuck else?” she half-moaned, half-laughed at him.

That was the start _and_ the end of it, because after that neither of them lasted long. Steve resumed his forceful fucking - not something he’d have allowed himself had he been in his right mind - and Darcy was perfectly happy to excite and rub her own clit in symphony with his efforts. As she came she let him know by dragging him down and gasping ‘ _Now’_ and he took his leave to hurtle himself toward his own pulsing, messy and protracted climax. He stilled on top of her, thrusting as deep as he could get as he filled her and touched their brows together, sweat stinging his eyes and a long-denied contentment seeping into his body.

It was a messy business, he could feel it even as he pulled back, his too-sensitive cock jumping at the friction as their bodies disengaged. Almost immediately he rolled aside, putting some distance between them, and launched into an apology, “Darce, honey. That was - _wow._ But I, ugh, I _came_ ,” his voice dipped low because words bandied about in arousal weren’t quite so easy to say in the come-down, “I came a _lot._ I always do, it’s the serum. I…”

“I like messes,” Darcy said as she flopped her head aside, tracking his movements. “Means we were having too much fun to worry about the practicalities.”

“So we’re okay?” Steve asked as he reached out to push one sweat-damp curl back from her forehead.

“ _So okay._ Like, as ‘okay’ as it gets.” He took what was probably his first full-breath for the night, finally settling in to the lethargy that always came after damn good sex. He shuffled around, pulling the comforter aside and urging Darcy to roll aside so that he could slip it out from beneath her before he repositioned it across both of their bodies. He lamented that he’d had to cover up her body, but he didn’t want a chill to drive her from the bed. There was also the spectacle of his already stiffening cock, a literal perk of the serum, he didn’t need her thinking that he hadn’t enjoyed himself. He had, more than he thought he ever could in this new world. “You’re still a jerk,” Darcy continued conversationally as she shuffled nearer beneath the bedclothes. “You ignored me for _weeks_ because you couldn’t handle your dude-lust and _that_ is super uncool.”

Steve tried to look sufficiently penitent, even as he rolled his eyes. Still, he wasn’t one to miss such perfectly presented window of opportunity. “You’re right,” he nodded as he grabbed the comforter and pulled it up over his shoulders and slipped down beneath it, hands searching for Darcy’s legs as he moved. “I should make amends.”

Her legs twitched in his hands, “Dude, not to put you off - even though _you_ raised the point - but you might not want to put your mouth down-”

“Sorry, are you saying something?” Steve called up to her as he lifted one leg and ducked his head between her thighs, “I’m having _too much fun_ to hear you.”

 

~*~

 

There needed to be a brochure, Darcy decided as she watched Steve in the strangled morning light that intruded between the gaps of the curtains. Something like the brochures you found at health clinics, like _‘Caped sexcapades: So you’ve decided to bang a superhero’._ What it would say, she wasn’t quite sure. As super sex partners went, she figured she was a novice. But if she _were_ the author of such a document, she probably would have covered toe post-coital bug-out. The public needed to _know_. 

And so did she.

Because there she was, quietly losing her shit, because - _yo -_ she’d just woken up next to Captain Fuckin’ America and she was so utterly _unequipped_ to deal. She’d absolutely gotten the cherry end of the deal, she was waking up to a man that _Taylor Swift_ had publicly deemed a ‘Dreamboat’ and he was waking up to… well, _her._

She delayed doing anything rash, like doing a commando roll from the bed and leopard crawling from the room, and instead focussed watching him in the thready light.They faced each other in sleep. Steve slept heavily - like, _actually_ heavily because he’d somehow managed to half drape his torso across hers. The fine dirty blonde hair on his chest brushed against her breast and she found it fascinating. The old reel footage of Steve’s transformation that she’d watched in history class hadn’t led her to think he’d have any hair, she wondered if that was something that had kicked in after the transformation. Or maybe they’d removed if for the procedure. Had it hurt him? The procedure, not the hair removal. The hair on his chest was the same shade as his eyelashes, they fanned out over his cheeks, absurdly long and probably grown purely to make her feel inadequate. And while she was on the subject of eyelashes… Darcy reached out an gently peeled one of her own rogue false eyelashes from his shoulder. Ugh. _Sexy._

That was the problem with Steve, didn’t mater how he slummed it, he was still miles too good for her and when he woke he’d get wise to the madness that had gripped him overnight. He’d be polite, make excuses, probably see her home. But the truth was there between them: where he’d had the moral courage to put her out cold during her feverish encounter with the sex pollen, she’d welcomed him with open arms and preyed on a similar sort of madness when - weeks later - it had manifested in him. That’s why he was the superhero and she… was not.

“I can actually _hear_ you thinking, kid,” Steve spoke clearly and she gave a startled squeak.

“I’m thinking ‘ _Gee, I wish Steve would stop sleeping on my arm’._ ”

“Liar,” he murmured as he opened his eyes, shifted a little, freeing her arm, and reached for one knee to drag it up and over his hip while they still faced each other. She caught the faintest hint of morning breath, nothing atrocious, mostly stale champagne, and something in her head revelled in the thought that Steve wasn’t _all_ superhuman. Some things about him were probably still quite normal. 

“I should go,” she said softly, even as her fingers speared through the sparse hair on his chest twisting and playing absently as she frowned across the few inches that separated them.

Steve frowned back at her, only his frown was a lot more pronounced. “Don’t much like that idea, Darcy.”

“We’ll get caught. It’s enough that Stark probably knows, you really want some enterprising paparazzo to put two and two together and realise why I’m leaving the Tower this early in the morning?”

“Please,” Steve’s huge palm coasted up and down her thigh, “Stark had that worked out before the foundations for this place were ever set down. You can fly out or you can step out into a second-hand electronics store three blocks from here. It’s a flimsy excuse and you know it.” His hand stilled and he frowned even harder, “Unless… you _do_ want to be here?”

Darcy could think of no more affirmative response than to reach for his cock, which was precisely what she did. His breath warmed her cheek as his shock came out in a breathy ‘ _ugh’._ She curled her fingers around him. “I’m good here.”

“Good,” Steve’s eyes shuttered closed as he wrapped his fist around her own and squeezed, tightening her grip on him and setting a faster pace. “Also,” his jaw clenched as he struggled for words, “You still haven’t given me that A +.”

“A +? Could take weeks to get you kissing at that level,” she grinned and bumped her nose against his.

“Months.” He confirmed with a jerky nod. “Feelin’ like a slow learner.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I had this last little bit, that was kind of like an epilogue, but it was only two sentences and I struck it off as being too fluffy. But if you're interested: "It ended up taking four years for Steve to get his A +. It came when he pressed a quick peck to Darcy’s lips as they stood in a small rural town hall and watched quietly as the ink dried on their marriage certificate."
> 
> Feedback is love and it makes my day to hear what people think! Thanks so much for reading.

**Author's Note:**

> Part two will be along in a day or two, I had to split it because it was getting out of hand.


End file.
